Fantasy Football Week 1 TE stock watch: T.J. Hockenson among fallers, plus risers to know based on key usage metrics

Each week, we learn new information as the ever-changing Fantasy landscape at the tight end position reshapes itself. There are many specific usage stats that affect a TE's Fantasy projection, and outside of a few players, we see those underlying usage metrics fluctuate throughout the course of a season. And no week presents us with more new information than Week 1.

Each week, SportsLine's Fantasy expert Jacob Gibbs will examine all of this new information and provide a data-driven deep dive into Sunday's games to offer a better understanding of what we learned and how it will impact the Fantasy outlook of specific teams and players.

Here, we'll look at the leaderboards in several key metrics around tight end usage, then share our look as whose stock is rising in falling after this weekend's action. That includes Detroit's T.J. Hockenson, who may be "taking on [a] smaller receiving role," according to Gibbs.

If you have questions about any stats, players, or situations covered or not covered in this article, feel free to reach out to Gibbs on Twitter.

Week 1 Leaders

Route involvement rate -- the percentage of a team's routes on which a player runs a route.

To draw a target, a tight end must first be running a route. To run a route, a tight end's team must first be dropping back to pass.

Dropback rates -- which teams seem to want to pass the ball at the highest/lowest rates?

In the tweet above, I examined team tendencies on first downs in the first half -- the thought process behind using this subset was that it gives a true representation of what the teams would like to do. What was their plan? For teams like the Panthers and the Jaguars, it was clear that the plan was to pass as often as possible. For the 49ers and Titans, the opposite was true.

Another way to get an idea of a team's intention is to look at their dropback rate when the game was still close.

So, we have an idea of which teams really want to pass the ball at a high rate. Which teams were intentional about pushing the ball down the field?

I believe it is important to examine both of these average depth of target stats. Let's examine Lamar Jackson as a use case -- he had by far the highest aDOT in Week 1, yet there were four quarterbacks who attacked downfield with more consistency. One or two long heaves (which often have a very low probability of resulting in a reception) can throw off aDOT data in a significant way, especially when we are examining a one-game sample.

On the other side of this discussion, we find the least aggressive QBs from Week 1.

In his first game with A.J. Brown, who has been one of the league's most efficient downfield route runners over the past three seasons, Jalen Hurts played in a way we've never seen before.

This brings us to our next stat: air yardage leaders! Tracking air yards, average route depths, and average depth of target is vital to understanding how each NFL offense operates and will interact with opposing defensive schemes on a week-to-week basis.

With the Eagles so focused on short passing in Week 1, Dallas Goedert certainly did not stand out in the air yardage department. His average depth of target was just 2.25 yards, resulting in just a 7% target share for Goedert.

In addition to knowing which players drew massive air yardage totals, it is important to be familiar with air yardage shares. The rate version of this stat can help identify players who might break out if their offensive environment improves and produces more air yards in the future.

Speaking of rate stats, it's about time that we got to the oh-so-important target share leaderboard.

Who the heck is this Juwan Johnson who keeps popping up? Only SportsLine members get to read about him!

Come dig into the full data on Week 1 TE usage rates with us.

Which tight end's route involvement indicates that better days are ahead? And which tight end is officially a fine drop in Fantasy now that we have confirmation of his role? ... Join SportsLine here to see Jacob Gibbs' Wide Receiver Usage Report, all from one of the nation's most accurate experts as graded by FantasyPros!